


In the Air (Tonight)

by Regency



Category: Holby City
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Circus, F/F, Like Moulin Rouge but gayer and with considerably less consumption, Love Letters, More glitter than will ever come out of the sheets, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-07 17:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15912786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regency/pseuds/Regency
Summary: Bernie attends the circus with Dom to see Lofty, the trapeze artist he’s carrying a torch for, and while there sees the woman who will become the great love affair of her life, Serena Campbell, the lead aerialist of the Holby City Gliders. Bernie is smitten, and soon Serena will be, too





	In the Air (Tonight)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kayryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayryn/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Cover Art: In The Air (Tonight)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15924101) by [Kayryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayryn/pseuds/Kayryn). 



> If you know me at all, you know I couldn't resist a bit of glitter and a skin-tight leotard while my favorite sexy (not quite so) silver vixen performed death-defying acts. I make no apologies for that. ;)
> 
> A good faith effort was made at research for this piece, but I recognize I might have stuffed up in the details and I freely admit I took liberties for the aesthetic. Please forgive me if I've erred too egregiously. I hope you enjoy the story anyway, and thank you for reading! :D

“I can’t believe I let you bring me here,” muttered Bernie as she edged past the ticket taker into the large white tent at the heart of the circus fairgrounds.  Bringing up the rear, Dom only smiled and chomped on his caramel popcorn.  The bare wooden stands were filling rapidly on either side of them and they just managed to squeeze onto the end of the first row overlooking the centre ring.

“You know,” he said, “you might have some fun if you let yourself.”

Bernie took umbrage at that. “I have plenty of fun.”

“Netflix binges don’t count.”

“They must do, otherwise you and I never have any bloody fun together.” Bernie wasn’t counting their forays into Holby’s gay nightlife at all in this estimation. Getting hit on by twentysomethings was good for the ego, not so much for Bernie’s dating life.

“Noted. Let’s watch the show and appreciate the fit acrobats in leotards.” His eyebrows danced.  The master of ceremonies, or ringmaster as Dom insisted, stood in the centre of the packed-dirt ring attired in an understated tuxedo and tails introducing the first act of the night and the reason Bernie was nursing a splinter in her right buttock instead of staring at her bedroom ceiling at home.  The ringmaster, who introduced himself as Henrik Hanssen, was impossibly tall, his limbs impossibly long, and his face was grave but kind.

“Thank you, one and all, for granting us the honour of your presence and the privilege of your time.  We have for you tonight a performance like no other.  Our aerial performers have prepared for months.  They have trained for years.  Let us have a round of applause for the intrepid, the brave, the gravity-defying Holby City Gliders.”  He led the spectators in raucous applause as the bright klieg lights illuminating the tent shut off unexpectedly.  Someone behind Bernie gasped.  The crowd murmured. The flaps of the tent had been lowered; the only lights still burning were the exit signs.  Bernie’s eyes were just adjusting to the dim atmosphere when a single spotlight the lit the centre of the ring and the statuesque figure therein.

Bernie sat forward, intrigued.  “That isn’t Lofty, is it,” she asked Dom under her breath.  Dom elbowed her to shush.  Of course that wasn’t Lofty, Bernie reasoned.  Lofty was, by Dom’s meticulous account, leaner where this person was densely muscled, filling out an orange and blue bodysuit at the chest and arms and thighs.  Bernie wet her lips.  “Who’s that?”

“Serena Campbell, lead aerialist. Silk’s her speciality.  Bit of a badass to hear the internet tell it.” He side-eyed Bernie’s obvious surprise.  “What? Lofty’s been on her Instagram a couple of times.  I read things.” Before Bernie could enquire further, and she would be enquiring, three more spotlights appeared and three more similarly costumed aerialists with them.  Four paired bolts of midnight blue fabric unspooled from the ceiling.  Serena gave a grand bow to the audience.  She grabbed her paired silks and elevated her chin.  It was dimpled, noted Bernie, who’d never thought much of dimpled chins before now but was swiftly developing a taste for them.  Serena’s lips glistened pink in the unforgiving light, her eyes dark and mien fierce in concentration.  She took in the crowd and shrewdly regarded the illusion of the sky.

A set of low-pitched throbbing chord resonated through the tent, drowning out the murmurs of other spectators and Bernie’s loudly beating heart. 

The song’s volume rose through its opening notes, the synth beat, the electrical guitar backing, the bass line; all of it compelled Bernie to sit up and listen, to watch. Bernie’s eyes were glued to Serena as she and her aerialists began to climb. Feet twisted confidently in the fabric, they rose arm over arm, anchored solely by the length of silk twined around one of their legs. Biceps and triceps flexed and unfurled, calves pulled taut. Thick thighs bunched under flicked nylon and silk. Bernie gulped. She redirected her eyes up Serena’s back to trace the naked runnel of her spine, the ruffled wings of her shoulder blades.

A low-pitched melody replaced the chord, and then in kicked the fixed drumbeat. The LED ticker display running the circumference of the ring read in bright red digital type, ‘Phil Collins – In the Air Tonight.’ 

 They swung fluidly to the rhythm of the song, prowling to the brooding beat, pirouetting like ballet dancers in an unseen music box at the influx of the lyrics.

At the change of beat, the flipped upside down, suspended midair in a handstand with nowhere for their hands to stand.  They fluidly glided from pose to pose, the silks twisted about their limbs by quick, flexible flicks of hands and feet. They climbed as they tempo rose, trailing lengths of shimmering fabric that swept the stage kicking up clouds of sand that set the air glittering wherever the light touched.  Their legs dangled as they spun and pedalled on the unseen currents of the air. 

Light flashed on Vaseline grins and grimaces alike. Nerves and fear and concentration. Serena swayed at the centre, a still point amid distress only perceptible relative to her tranquillity.  She neither smiled nor faltered as the song rose higher and fell on the chorus and hook.  She wound her shapely form between her two silks, curling her limbs through them as sinuously as a serpent, her torso curling in the makeshift swing anchored by her forearms, her rolling shoulders.

Bernie tapped her toes to the beat. She’d forgotten she knew this song, could even half remember the lyrics from being young, from attending a concert with a pretty girl she didn’t kiss.

Serena turned rapidly, gracefully rolling uphill, a midnight silk circling her waist as the song reached a fever pitch. Her aerialists followed, that little bit less steady but every one steadfastly controlled. Grimacing to her apparent glee. Her ducklings on the high wire act, and her the first to fall.

Bernie’s foot stopped.

She remembered...

Drums crashed through the tension.

Serena plummeted twenty feet, whirling through the air, with nothing to catch her bar the ground.

Bernie’s pattering heart erupted into her throat, a gasp choking her.

Serena neatly spun on the arm and leg still entwined in her silk, and her back-ups followed her.

They were fine, every one of them. Bernie counted them to be sure, and didn’t think she was the only one. Her sharp inhale had been lost in the chorus of others sounding around the arena. She only released her hold on Dom’s arm when he complained archly about bruises.

Serena Campbell and her aerial silks landed on the ground to thunderous applause, Bernie among them. The Holby City Gliders were amazing. They were marvellous.  Serena was marvellous.

Bernie clapped just a little bit louder than those around her. She knew it, but she couldn’t help it.  Serena knew how to put on a show. She was the epitome of a showstopper.

Serena and the others took a collective bow, each glowing with pleasure at the reception they’d received. The grimacing and straining in the others had gone.  Serena’s ferocious attention gave way to a confident grin that lifted the apples of her cheeks and gave her something of a naughty air about her.  Dom whooped. He shrugged at Bernie’s sharp glance. He really did like her.

On taking her final bow, Serena’s saucy grin grew soft and almost bashful as she turned to leave the stage, and Bernie felt something stir inside her at the sight of it. More than a thrilling stab of desire—and hadn’t she felt many of those in the last few minutes. More than attraction. Something rather like an idle fondness, honey-rich and sweet as toffee in her mouth.

Bernie whistled with the last of her applause, just for something to do, for some way to convey how much she’d enjoyed this moment, whatever it was, and was shocked when Serena glanced back over her shoulder.  Bernie wasn’t even sure Serena saw her, between the milling aerialists and the over-bright lights, but as she left the ring she smiled once more, wider still, and Bernie smiled back.

 

*

 

At the end of her act, Serena stepped into a silk dressing gown, held by one of the stage crew outside the ring just out of view of the audience. Serena thanked them with a quick smile and hurried down the beaten path to the VIP tent for her scheduled meet and greets.  Some of her fellow silks brought up the rear while others took the opportunity to escape whilst the getting was good. Lucky them, they weren’t required to meet the high-dollar patrons the Gliders relied on to keep operating despite fluctuating attendance. The circus was a thriving enterprise in its own right, the acrobatic company an off-shoot that had split off in the early 90’s due to personal bad blood few recalled. Only renewed good relations between the current owners allowed them to continue their lucrative collaborations.  Serena’s fundraising ability was at the heart of those good relations.

As far as Serena was concerned, Guy and Henrik counted on her charming disposition a bit too much. She wanted nothing more than to sleep and have a bit to eat as nerves prevented her from doing so in the hours prior to a performance. But no, needs must and Serena was nothing if not dutiful to her cause.  She distantly recalled when her job had once been to rehearse and to perform, nothing more.  Some days she missed the freedom of that; other days she relished the control of doing more.  Who said a showgirl couldn’t be complicated?

Morven Digby jogged up in her scuffed ballet flats and dressing gown to join her on the walk over.  She could be relied on not to shirk a single ‘do Serena herself was compelled by the Gliders’ board of directors to attend.

“Ready to face to lion’s den?”

“Only always, darling. Smiles on.” Morven beamed.  To be that young and full of enthusiasm. Serena loved her for it.

She handed her dressing gown off to a waiting attendant at the much smaller tent in rear of the big top, as it were.  Their VIP patrons had been the first shown out when the show ended and they’d be inside their funhouse waiting to compliment Serena and her aerialists on their technique, their grace, and their costumes.  Serena would be the unhappy den mother making sure they kept their hands to themselves, reminding them with an icy look that it was art they were patronizing, not a flesh market.  Add a few tailored bodysuits and some patrons lost all sense of propriety.  If she were very lucky, she might even find someone entertaining to talk to between lectures on polite behavior.  She hoped so; these parties could get ever so dull when it was all autographs, selfies, and tactfully asking for money.

Morven handed off her own dressing gown and smoothed down her costume to brush off any stray threads.  She was lovely and bright and eager to learn; she was everything Serena could ask for in a protégé. She had been outstanding on-stage tonight and she would always be, Serena thought.  _If only Arthur could see her now._   She brushed the thought aside for another night.

“Come along, you.  It’s time I taught you how we politely fleece the rich.” She winked and Morven grinned.  Serena didn’t have to pretend to smile as she and Morven and their fellow aerialists all in blue and orange swept into the entryway of the VIP tent.

It was time to put on another show, this one set firmly set on the ground. Fortunately, they were quite good at that sort of thing.  They were going to knock their patrons’ socks off, and just maybe make off with their wallets too.

 

*

 **  
** Bernie watched the remainder of the performances after the aerial silks had their turns at center stage, but she couldn’t get Serena out of her mind.  The others were marvellous, to be sure, not that Bernie took note of them beyond general purpose awe at what they could do.  Strength was fairly easy, but grace entwined with strength was a beast of another stripe. And still, none of the other aerialist acts had impressed Bernie like the first. The trapeze artists somersaulting above a safety net made her pulse jump and the hoop contortionists brought forth a baffled squint, but it was the aerial silks whose exploits danced like after-images imprinted on her memory. One in particular.

“So pretty hot, wasn’t he?” asked Dom once the acrobat on the hoop had been lowered safely to the floor to take his bow and accept his applause.

Bernie wavered.  “Who? Oh, Lofty! Right, yes. He looked great.”  Bernie had forgot all about Dom’s crush as soon as Serena appeared. His cloud of dark hair had nothing on the figure she cut at the heart of everything.  Bernie’s heartbeat still hammered that little bit faster than it ought to thinking of her, one arm twisted in blue all that safeguarded her from lethal freefall. And she had smiled.

“So...which one caught your eye?”

“What makes you think any of them caught my eye?”  Unimpressed, Dom tipped his popcorn container back to get at the last of it.  He’d eaten absentmindedly through the show without offering Bernie more than a handful. All to the better; she might have choked at the first back flip or the first gulp-inducing side split. Or the second. The third.  Bernie would have aspirated. She cleared her throat and made to put her hands in her pockets only to find her position prevented it. They weren’t being let out yet. There was no escaping Dom’s expectant look. She threw up her hands.  “I thought Serena was pretty good, for all I know about this.  She has good form.” There, a neutral statement that was in no way incriminating.

“Hmm, like her form, do you?  I thought you might.”

Bernie played at indignant.  “We weren’t here for me, Dom.  What I think doesn’t matter. What about you? Lofty still got your heart?”

Dom fairly swooned.  “My heart, my body, my soul.”

“I’m shocked you didn’t throw roses at his feet.”

Dom shrugged.  “Did that last time. They asked me not to do it again. Security issue.”  Bernie thought better than to ask for clarification.

“You’re well gone.”

“Uh, duh. He’s gorgeous and sweet, and he can _bend_. Did you see him?”

Bernie had seen all the aerialists, each one spectacularly fit, flexible, altogether stunning examples of athleticism.  Serena, her physique the fullest on display, was no less capable of marvellous feats of physical endurance. Lofty was incredible, Bernie agreed, but Serena was a wonder.  Fearless like no one Bernie had ever seen.

“I can hear you lusting,” Dom said, sing-song.

“You cannot.”

“You don’t deny the lusting.”

“She’s beautiful,” Bernie said, affecting a casual shrug.  Bernie had found her smile enchanting, her shining eyes a roving distraction throughout the show.

“And very, very flexible,” Dom reminded her, as if she needed a reminder of any kind. Bernie would be seeing those poses in her wildest dreams.

“Also that,” she acknowledged.  Serena was all muscle-bound softness.  Her firebrand costume emphasized her trim shoulders and toned arms, abdomen, and legs. The eye-catching fullness of her hips and arse.  Each contortion rippled up and down her body, struck chords vibrating in one, harmonious key.  Her elevated backbend had danced up the arms bracing her on the silks, down the glistening skin of her chest, down her torso to steady her generous hips, and solid legs.  A cascade of practiced synchronized motion. Balance.  Bernie itched to feel Serena contort, stretch languidly in her hands. Serena was a lesson in anatomy Bernie would have been eager to master under other circumstances.  Had she met Serena at a party, she wouldn’t have wasted a minute striking up a chat with her. What a night that might have been.

“Still fantasizing,” Dom asked, blandly matter-of-fact, as though he’d been trying to catch her attention for some time.

“I am not fantasizing. I’m appreciating the art form.”

“Just say you’re thinking about her bum, it sounds way less pretentious.”

“Fair dos.”  Bernie was thinking about every inch of Serena Campbell. _It’s been too long since I went on a date_ , she decided. Maybe if she had she wouldn’t be so drawn to a woman she’d never meet, all because she could fill out a leotard and knew how to work a crowd.  Bernie was anything but rabidly social despite nominally being out and ready to take the Sapphic scene by storm.  Her divorce had soured her on lifelong commitment, and Alex had soured her on true love.  But desire still sang through Bernie on-key, and Serena in all her glory had cued the song.  “You’re thinking about his arse, aren’t you?”

Dom pulled a soppy face.  “Would you believe his hair?”

Bernie groaned. “Pull it together, Copeland.”

“I can’t. He’s so cute.” Bernie had been hearing about his cuteness for longer than she cared to recall.

“And flexible,” she rebutted. Turnabout was fair play and all that.

“Oh so flexible.” He stared into the vacant ring, his gaze unfocused, a smirk playing on his lips.

“I’m going to douse you in lager, I swear I will.”

“And replace my jacket if you ruin it, I hope.”

“Stop mooning and talk to him, Dom. It’s been months.” It felt like years and Bernie knew from wasted time.

“Three months is barely anything.”

“Keep telling yourself that, mate. That’s not how you get your man.”

“As if I could.”

“He’s fit, Dom, but you’re no troll.”

“Thanks for that.”

“You aren’t! Neither of us are. We’re perfectly polite, attractive people who can have our pick of some of the most attractive members of our community.”

“And how does this explain our currently single status exactly?”

Bernie made a couple of attempts to answer before giving it up as a bad job. “I don’t have an answer for that.” Bernie hadn’t actually wanted anybody till now, hadn’t thought about how lonely her flat was or how empty her bed would seem when trying to exorcise the thoughts in her head later on.

“I feel loads better, Bernie. Good pep talk. Let’s get out of here.” They made for the exits, chucking the drink Bernie had forgotten about earlier and Dom’s forlorn sack of caramel kernels in the nearest bin. They left the fairgrounds altogether, having seen all they came to see.

“I was serious when I said you were in with a chance with him.”

“Please.”

“Come on, I’ve never seen you doubt yourself before. You’re fit, he’s fit. You’re age appropriate.”

“Thank you, Match.com.”

“He’s not afraid of a bit of sparkle.” All of the acrobats sparkled. Their skin shimmered under the scalding lights. Their outfits were a neat array of every speck of glitter in the country, Bernie was sure. What should have constituted a gaudy disaster made them look like stars.

“I do like a bit of sparkle,” Dom conceded.

Bernie jostled his shoulder, singing softly, “Dom and Lofty shagging in a tree…”

He wrinkled his nose. “Tried that, can’t recommend it.”

Bernie stopped a moment. “Why haven’t I heard about this?”

Dom smirked. “Before your time, young Padawan.”

“I’m older than you. By decades.”

“That may be, but I have been gaying it up longer than you knew how. I am the master and you are the apprentice in this relationship.”

Bernie rolled her eyes and threw up her arm to summon a taxi when they arrived at the side of the road.  “I need to be briefed on this misadventure ASAP.”  Bernie didn’t mind employing a bit of friendly blackmail to get Dom to buy the drinks at Albie’s.

Dom grunted. “Not without booze and plenty of it.”

A black taxi stopped and Bernie threw open to door to admit her friend. “Booze, I can do.”

Even if Bernie wasn’t getting any, she wouldn’t discourage her friend from taking a chance. The worst that could happen was rejection. Painful, yes, but also survivable. Bernie wasn’t there yet.

 

*

An hour after her last donor meet and greet of the evening, Serena was back in her private dress tent, tired but content, swaddled in her silk dressing gown, bruised and aching feet clad in padded slippers. Her costume hung on a hook to be picked up by the dressers for steam cleaning once she’d left for home. Jason would surely be waiting for their weekly World’s Strongest Man rewatch and Serena admittedly couldn’t wait to get started, though the programme wasn’t especially her bag rather his.  Her nephew brought her down to earth as no one could; she cherished his presence in her life. But before she could retreat to home to throw off the effects of the day, she had mail to attend to. Fan mail, to be precise.

Serena hated fan mail.

She didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. She loved her job, she loved her fans, but fan mail was work. It added hours to her already over-long work week. Hours she could be spending perfecting her next routine or crunching numbers in the office. Hours she could be spending soaking in the bath or fast asleep in bed.  But fans demanded to be heard and it never paid to be unkind. So here she was again at half nine on a weeknight poring over the post left by her assistant in neat piles on her vanity.

Needless to say, most of it was dreck.  Even the most obscure performers received bags of the stuff each month and Serena was anything but obscure, having spent decades as the public face of the Holby City Gliders.  She had supporters dating back to her debut as a trapeze artist at seventeen, some of whom gushed liked proud mothers over how she’d grown and others who even after twenty years lamented that she’d never returned to her roots on the trapeze. She did her level best to appease both with gratitude and personalized notes. She wrote her thank you’s till her fingers cramped and she had to dig out another box of personalized stationery from her hope chest to replace the one she’d depleted.

Many of her younger cohorts opted for email or twitter replies, or even thank you videos. All lovely ideas and none that Serena hadn’t been known to undertake herself from time to time, as the opportunity arose, but Serena preferred the distance of a handwritten letter. It gave her space to think and re-draft her thoughts and feelings before she made them public. She could be blunt when peeved and fans were never so sensitive to Serena’s feelings as she tried to be to theirs—she contained herself to one social media platform for this very reason; Serena’s occasionally short temper was ill-suited to the age of instant communication. No, letters permitted Serena to be as intimate or as formal as she pleased without an audience of thousands to berate her for an ill-turned phrase.

It also limited the obsessive and inappropriate from getting quite so close.

Serena read the next letter by rote. She knew from the third line what line what response she would send.  
  
_Thank you for sending such a thoughtful and generous marriage proposal. I am afraid I must decline as my life is here with the show, though I little doubt you would do all you could to make me happy. I wish you every happiness with someone else._

_Sincerely,_

_Serena._

That one was slightly better than the previous note she’d tossed in the bin, which had asked in not so many words if Serena might like to swing from the sender’s ‘flesh trapeze.’  A marriage proposal was something of a step up from that, at least. She was going to let security handle any future missives from either sender. In her experience, they tended to get nasty when Serena said no.

She rubbed her tired eyes and checked her watch. Just a few letters more and then maybe she could convince Jason to rewatch Mary Beard instead.  She’d had about all the men she could stomach for one night.

 

*

 

Bernie and Dom adjourned to Bernie’s flat for several episodes of Queer As Folk, Queer Eye, and Come Dine with Me while chugging shots of tequila and playing an increasingly drunken game of Never Have I Ever.  Outcome: Dom had done many things Bernie hasn’t got to around to yet, but he had not had a quickie in a locked dispensary during an airstrike.  She was somewhat proud of hat accomplishment, all things being equal. Alex hadn’t complained; they’d each been caught in the moment, eager, desperate to feel alive on the cusp of death.

Dom had sacked out on her sofa, faced down, drooling on the tattered throw she distinctly recalled draping over him.  Bernie had nodded off in her bedroom on top of the covers, fully dressed but for the shirt she’d tossed over a desk chair and her bare feet.  They both slept like the drunken dead, hard and immovable till just before dawn when Bernie’s alarm roused them to fraternal twin hangovers.  They could both hold their drink but they might have overindulged this once.

Bernie poured Dom into a cab with a thermos of strong instant coffee and staggered back to bed for a few more hours of fitful, bladdered sleep.  She wasn’t due at the hospital today and she had every intention of enjoying her cherished free day by being indolent as an overfed housecat. Her next seven hours passed deliciously thus: unconscious barring the awareness required to rise to use the toilet, toss back a couple of paracetamol, and change position before descending into the land of Morpheus once again. Once she finally rose, around noon, feeling much more refreshed, not to mention human, Bernie greeted the afternoon with a cup of good coffee and a hot shower. Her second dose of pain reliever put paid to the persistent pounding her temples and the pressure behind her bloodshot eyes.  Reading her emails put it back, increased twofold.  Emails from Abigail Tate about the trauma unit exceeding its discretionary budget spending limit for the second quarter in a row.  Others from Jac Naylor about monopolizing theatre space during a trauma incident earlier in the week.  Another reminder from Jasmine Burrows about her F2 portfolio review session scheduled for the following week.  And then there was the message from Marcus. Bernie massaged her forehead. She wasn’t ready to deal with his latest grievances at this very moment.

She abandoned her PC to retrieve her mobile, a decent enough excuse to put off clearing her inbox. She had a ‘home safe’ text from Dom from earlier in the day and a few terse, monosyllabic replies to her wild attempts to reconnect with her kids.  _Better than silence_ , she decided, scrolling on.  Not much farther back, proof of Bernie’s rather dormant social life, she stumbled on a separate conversation with Dom detailing his discovery of the Holby City Gliders and his rapid descent into becoming acrobat Lofty Chiltern’s most devoted fan.  He had overwhelmed Bernie with links to the Gliders on social media to start with before eventually transitioning into a rather passionate Lofty supporter first and foremost.  It wasn’t difficult to see why.  Bernie had watched a fraction of the videos her friend linked to before realizing she could spare her data plan and let Dom describe them all to her in excruciating detail.  It occurred to, apropos of nothing, that the aerialist she’d so enjoyed the previous evening might be featured in some of these videos she hadn’t watched.  Bernie glanced between her mobile and her idling PC.  She could spend the afternoon answering pressing work emails or she could gorge herself on hi-res film footage of beautiful people (in her and Dom’s respective estimations) in beautiful costumes soaring through the air on a wing and a prayer.

It wasn’t a contest.

Bernie passed her rare night away from work watching aerial silk performances online. After her first Serena Campbell interview she fell into a rabbit hole of related videos—performance clips and social media tutorials on proper wrapping and dismounting technique for curious beginners.  Serena was as dynamic a personality Bernie thought she might be. More so, even.  Surely more than her performances allowed.

"I thought the point was to avoid falling,” said Ric Griffin, official physician of record for the Gliders and a fellow consultant at Holby City Hospital, to Bernie’s surprise. Ric had never mentioned it, nor had Dom. Or maybe he had and Bernie had neglected to pay attention. She’d rather started to tune out at the first mention of the Gliders these days.

On screen, Serena huffed. She was giving Ric such a look Bernie thought there had to be a story behind it.  "We all fall, Ric. That's called the close. We fall with grace and purpose, and we always rise again. That is the point."

“Of course,” he agreed. Serena looked very much like she wanted to smack him one.

“Allow me to demonstrate.”

 “Please do.”

"Watch closely, Mr. Griffin. Perhaps you’ll finally learn something.” Serena retrieved a jar of dry rosin from a nearby trolley to rub on her hands.  "It makes it easier to grasp the silks," she advised. She dabbed her toes and soles with rosin and alcohol.  "Eyes on me."

“Not a problem.”

She glared at him good-naturedly. He dodged her well-aimed swat with a low chuckle, stepping back and off the mat at the centre of the training room to give her the floor.  
  
Serena stretched her arms wide like a ballerina upon her swan song and she flew.  She wound one of the crimson silks about her leg and launched herself up the sleek length of the other, arm over arm. She might have been crawling across the floor for the ease of her ascent. Bernie lost a mouthful of reheated lo mein down the front of her vest top watching her machinations from the ground. First row had nothing on this vantage point.

Once more the perfect picture of focus Serena executed a front split, each of her feet neatly secured in makeshift slings that wouldn’t have been out of place on AAU supporting the injured.  Her arms were rock steady stretched out to her sides, fluid as a rushing river as she curled them in the odd, occasional flourish. Her spine retained its natural curve to accent her perfect posture. Her navel was drawn tight toward her core, easily visible what passed for a forgiving ensemble in their world: close-knit leggings under an extra long vest top. Her toes formed tapered points, her calves formed defined hills under her leggings that swelled into wide muscular thighs and well-developed gluteal muscles not at all diminished by the otherwise unflattering attire. Her arse was a miracle and Bernie abruptly found herself a true believer. Not that it was only Serena’s body Bernie found herself fancying but everything about her, from her effortless grace on the silks to her audacious laughter on the ground; all of it spurred Bernie to seek out one more video, one more public appearance. Another interview. Another Instagram post. There was just something about Serena that pricked Bernie ravenous need to know, bizarre as that was.

Serena was unlike anybody Bernie had known in her life.  Not in her passion or her zeal—Bernie knew surgeons who lived to hold a scalpel and soldier born to brandish a bayonet—but in Serena’s fervent defence of her craft, her colleagues, and herself, Bernie found a sort of woman she’d never seen. A real firecracker, Bernie’s father would have called her, not knowing his daughter would one day come a willing moth to such a flame.

“I will not be telling Dom about this,” she muttered out loud to herself upon sighting yet another fetching screenshot of Serena under _Up next_.  This time the aerial performer dangled above a burbling pool of crystalline water in a costume of iridescent green, her eyes outlined in crystals, her bare arms painted in scales.  She swam above the water, a sumptuous creature shimmering in the moon glow pouring in from the skylight of the venue.  She undulated from one silk to the next, swanning for the audience’s prying eyes, for the camera. Her eyes were narrowed, her gaze precise.  Ocean colours were splashed across her cheeks and brow staining her aquamarine as sea glass embedded in silver-white sand.  Early silver kissed her temples, speckling her short dark hair like sea foam washed ashore.

She bent herself body in a backwards arc with toes touched to her crown.  A full moon shining on the roiling water below.  Stretching long, she spun a hurricane of silk and skin, forearms lace through silk, her eyes a twin eclipse. When she was finished and the dance was through, she let go and plunged through the air, crashing into the water and vanishing like a wave swallowed by the tide.  She was never there.

Bernie watched the video three more times before she thought to refresh her drink. She wasn’t in the mood for coffee anymore.

Well caught in the whirlpool of quiet infatuation, Bernie didn’t hesitate to watch the next related video on the playlist.  There was a playlist. Evidently Serena was something of a popular figure in the circus community.  _Or they’re all late-in-life lesbians who love a flexible woman. Can’t be that common, can it?_   Bernie decided it was probably best not to go looking for the answer to that.

Serena was once again talking to Ric.  It might have been a different clip from the same interview. The description said something about the importance of preparation and safety in circus work, and Ric had asked about her age.  Bernie was tempted to smack him outright the next time she saw him, no reason given. Serena was anything but over the hill.

“I wondered when you’d get around to asking about my age.”  Serena’s grimace-like grin said she didn’t relish the topic. “I’ve been at this a long time and I learned early on that taking care of my body was the only way to make a life of it. I started trapeze as a teenager, trained my body up early while it was still malleable and have maintained a strict though _not_ punishing fitness regimen ever since.  No, I don’t skip out on Shiraz or red meat or bread, but I work out, I sleep, I hydrate.” She enumerated her routine on her fingers.  “When injured, I rest. When sick, I rest.  When tired—you get the picture. Nothing I do is impossible for a woman of my age or build; I’m living proof.” Ric nodded, for once not offering an incredulous look or teasing rebuttal.  Bernie knew from their own frequent clashes that Ric suffered no fools. If he believed in Serena, and as the physician charged with determining her fitness to perform he would know best, then Bernie was in no position to question it. She had seen Serena with her own two eyes, not a hundred yards off. She was fit. _God isn’t she._

“So what would you say to anybody doubting your physical capability?” Ric asked Serena.

She wagged a finger at him in warning.  “You’ll get me fired, I can’t say _that_ on camera.” She winked and Ric snorted.

“I’ll catch you out one of these days.”

“You wish, Griffin.”

Bernie found herself smiling at their shared laughter, until she noted the time.  It was well after eleven and Bernie was due up at five.  Accustomed as she might have once been to functioning on little sleep, she didn’t relish manning a trauma unit on a run-down battery. She needed whatever rest her racing thoughts might permit her.

Bernie closed the tab and all the others she’d viewed after bookmarking the videos she might care to watch again.  What Serena said stayed with her. Bernie was reaching the point of her life where she was running into the very questions Serena did.  Questions about her capability, her stamina. Bernie was in the prime of her career, if not the prime of her youth, yet she often felt those around her were looking for her successor, the person who could do what Bernie did in the field or in theatre, but younger and chapter for less acclaim.  It rankled to have reached this point in her professional life only to be confronted with a host of new doubts.  But like Serena, Bernie was the best at what she did because she studied strenuously, because she trained, because the grass could not grow under a new technique without Bernie looking into it.

Her old commanding officer had said to her once, “You’re only indispensible until you aren’t,” and from then on she had made it her enduring mission to be a medic the army could not do without.  What she had forgotten was how to do the same in the realm o f parenting and marriage. Twenty-five years later, Bernie found her family had discovered she was the necrotic, gangrenous limb they could function fine in absence of, and so they had.  Marcus had found his occupational therapist girlfriend while Bernie was psyching herself up to suggest marriage counselling.  Cameron had found Keeley, to Bernie’s chagrin, and Charlotte had found whoever prevented her feeling forgotten in the chaos that followed.  Bernie had been left with a dinky two-bedroom flat and Holby City Hospital. A year post-divorce they were still all she had.

But now she also had Serena, for a given definition of the word.  Serena was her pretty indulgence.  Her theatre for theatre lovers. The Lofty to her Dom. Serena was a bit of harmless enjoyment which cost nothing and made Bernie’s heartbeat slow and race at turns.  Her lovely little crush that nobody knew.  She hadn’t permitted herself even that since she was a teenager. Somebody had asked her back then what singer she’d like to kiss and the only person she could think to name was Stevie Nicks. All her friends had named whomever had caught their adolescent attentions at the time.  Freddie Mercury, Mick Jagger, and Roger Daltrey.  Paul McCartney.  Michael Jackson.  All of them different from the sort of figure that turned young Bernie’s head.  She’d named Freddie Mercury in blind panic and none of her friends been the wiser.  But Bernie had known. After a lifetime visceral attraction veiled under the guise of pure admiration Bernie gave herself tacit permission to want a woman she couldn’t have.

It wasn’t objectification, Serena was unaffected by Bernie’s growing desire, and she was anything but demeaned by it. Serena performed like she was born among the moon and stars; gravity she could take or leave.  She was a creature of the sky meant to be gazed upon and here was Bernie present to look.  Bernie wanted her the way she hadn’t dared to want Stevie Nicks when she was fifteen.  Then as now, there was nothing to be done about it.  However, unlike those halcyon days of her girlhood, Bernie no longer needed to lie, most importantly not to herself.

Bernie stretched out on her bed and permitted herself to think of Serena. Serena with all those curves twisting between gossamer silks in a skin-tight leotard, flowing between unbelievable contortions to heart-pounding music while a light show danced around her. Anyone in the audience would fall a little bit in love; Bernie wasn’t foolish for being doing what came naturally. She wasn’t a fool at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to Kayryn, Jess, Kelly, Bonnie, and a multitude of other kind souls for keeping me going with this fic!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover Art: In The Air (Tonight)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15924101) by [Kayryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayryn/pseuds/Kayryn)




End file.
